Queer Art in Lithuania: From Veronika Šleivytė to Agnė Jokšė

Over the past two years, Outburst has been connecting with queer artists from Lithuania, a Baltic country with a fascinating and unique queer history and a rich arts and cultural scene, from the Soviet era to independence and beyond.

We warmly welcome art critic, curator, artist and writer Laima Kreivytė for a short history of queer art, censorship and curatorial interventions in Lithuania followed by a conversation with artist Agnė Jokšė and a reading of Lezbynai.

Lezbynai is an erotic story about lesbian love in the background of the Lazdynai district of Vilnius where the artist grew up. The residential houses lined up in front of each other in this neighbourhood create a kind of panopticon, where everyone
watches everyone, so any intimate gesture becomes both private and public at the same time. In Lezbynai, this situation becomes a medium for spreading a sexual, unbridled fantasy, which, unfolding within the artist’s relationship with her
lovers, paints the seemingly silent concrete walls of the district’s buildings and penetrates the lives and thoughts of the people living there.

Agnė Jokšė (b. 1993) is an artist and writer, currently based in Vilnius. Using the tools characteristic to autoethnography, Jokšė tells stories in which personal experiences and past events related to contemplations of love, intimacy,
relations and friendship intertwine with imaginative reflections. Works in mediums like video, and performative text, investigate questions concerning parallel histories, compassion, entangled relations, queerness and language.